"You Rock!!"

At least that's what someone passing by told me today as I was happily setting stones! I finally got the portion of the wall that faces the yard pretty well wrapped up. I might do some additional tuck-pointing to this area again later, but overall am pretty satisfied with how things are turning out.

Now that I have the side facing the yard done, I can focus on the side of the wall facing the street. Just a few more stones to set! I ran out of mortar and had to call it a day.

My back is ready for this project to be done. It doesn't think we should be mixing 180 lbs. of mortar. I couldn't agree more!

So much tuck-pointing to do in other parts of the wall! This should keep me busy all summer! Imagining how much money I am saving by doing it myself is so satisfying!

Today I am a Mason

Our home's property sits on a corner of two streets that join at a "T" intersection. The yard is sunken and a lovely stone wall runs adjacent to one of the streets. Earlier this week a vehicle made contact with the wall and damaged it.

This part of the wall has been reduced to crumbles. (shot from the street looking down into the yard)

It may be hard to tell in this shot, but the damaged portion of the wall is now slightly bulging near the rust-colored horizontal and the white triangle stones. (shot from the yard looking toward the adjacent street)

I think this might be a project I can handle... first—clean the area and stones of old mortar.

I moved a small chunk of old mortar and the whole section collapsed! Thankfully the stones missed my feet when they fell!

Thankfully I took pics before it collapsed. Hopefully that will help me figure out where all of the pieces go when I go to reassemble it!

Another section of the wall has some loose stones too. I decided to start down there so I could get my bearings and work out the technique before tackling the larger problem.

A car hit the corner of this wall a couple of years ago and loosened up some stones at the end.

Another "before" shot.

 And... VOILA!  This is what 60 lbs. of mortar looks like (my back is not happy about this project)!

Only the top layer of stones has been reset here.

Not too bad for my first time at masonry! I'm feeling pretty good about the process and am looking forward to getting the other section of the wall started.

The rocks behind the iris are for decoration and not part of my construction project.

Check back in a couple of days to see my progress!

Terrace Garden Progress

I recently showed you that I transplanted some iris onto the terrace near the strawberries:

I have since transplanted some coneflower, introduced some salvia, and added a few stones and some mulch. I also got rid of a candytuft plant—it was obscuring my new garden and was kind of leggy anyways. The stuff hanging off of the wall is phlox.

The salvia's not very happy—I think I damaged the roots in transport. I hope it rebounds!

Next I think I'll add some short daisies here and there and call it good. So glad not to have to worry about mowing this part of the yard anymore!

How Does Your Garden Grow?

You may recall last year my kid and I decided to try our hands at raised bed gardening. We built two boxes with left over 2"x4"s from another project and only planted one of the boxes. In it we planted five strawberry plants and two mini yellow squash plants. Being overrun with squash later caused me to reconsider my plans for the second garden box.

This image intentionally posted in black and white for dramatic effect to convey it's an image from last year. : P

Well I'm happy to report that we finally got the empty garden box planted! I found a basket of 10 strawberry plants on sale for only $6 and my kid helped me get them in some new dirt. I realize the box will be overrun with strawberries and I'm okay with that. We can always transplant them elsewhere later.

Ten happy little strawberry plants.

Big Goonie and her pup pose with all of the strawberry plants!

Big Goonie shows off the happy strawberry plants we planted last year.

Another part of last year's plan included placing 1-3 blueberry bushes in the vacant space between the left garden box and the stone wall. While I haven't completely abandoned that idea, for the time being I've decided to transplant some iris that were overrunning some day lilies and bring in some more flowers instead.

I finished getting the iris in the ground well past dusk.

Ideally I'd like to put in two more garden boxes on the terrace. That will help complete the space, but most importantly, it will eliminate an awkward place we have to mow! Now, off to find more boards!

I'm Still MARRIED!!

We knew when we bought this house nine years ago that there were hardwood floors under the carpet, and so I've been wanting to rip out our home's carpet for a while now. I came close a couple of years ago, but my baby played downstairs and was learning to walk so it seemed like a better idea to leave it for the time being. Well, my baby's six years old now, primarily plays upstairs, and has mastered walking (although one might question her abilities based on the band-aids that currently adorn her knees) so it seemed that the time had come.

Hubs, however, did not agree. In fact, I believe his exact words were, "I swear to God if you pull up the carpet that will be IT!" I have always been known to push my luck, and one recent weekend when hubs went out of town, I decided to find out what "IT" was.

I started ripping up the carpet at the bottom of the stairs first. Enclosed is my "before" picture. However, true to form, I got so into my project that I neglected to stop and take pics along the way. So, here's before...

And... VOILA! Here's "after"!

Photo shot from the stairs. You can see I still need to pull up carpet from under the TV. The furniture it sits on is pretty heavy and will take a little extra motivation before that task gets accomplished.

Surprisingly it didn't look too bad for an 87 year old floor. You can see a halo here and there that indicates where a previous area rug had been, but the scratches and overall condition isn't too bad. I think it will refinish nicely!

The area rug pictured here is one I've had for many years. Unfortunately it doesn't really go with my other decor (bedrooms, etc), so it's been waiting patiently in the basement for this day! The colors and pattern really go with this furniture nicely.

"So, how did hubs respond," you might be asking? Better than expected. When he saw the carpet rolls in the front yard as he pulled up from his weekend away, he continued to sit in his car seemingly dumbstruck. I thought he was surely contemplating driving away, but finally he emerged from the car. He didn't talk to me for an hour or so, but eventually told me that it looked better than he expected and that he liked it. So all's well that ends well! "IT" wasn't that bad!

A Special Gift for a Special Teacher

It's hard to believe the end of the school year is upon us already! As such, our kindergarten class had our last get-together today, celebrating with ice cream sundaes and a fun craft/gift for our teacher. I took on the task of coming up with the craft/gift and wanted to share the results with you!

First, I scoured the internet for ideas. I wanted to come up with something really special for our teacher! I found this really cute painted flower pot that really inspired me. How cool would it be to have a pot similar to this one and have it "planted" with tissue paper flowers made by the kids?

This is the inspiration piece I found on the internet.

A quick trip to the home improvement store yielded a terra cotta pot and matching saucer. I got them home and hit each with a coat of spray primer.

Time to get creative! I painted the outside body and inside lip of the pot with black crafting paint... 

 ...and the saucer too!

While those dried, I got to work on painting some kabob sticks in a shade of green similar to the pipe cleaners we'd be using to fashion our tissue paper flowers.

Fast forward a few days... I get so into what I'm doing that I often forget to stop and take pictures of the process to share with you here!

I painted the outer lip of the pot yellow and used a Sharpie to write dash marks and numbers, giving it the appearance of a ruler. The top rim of the pot and saucer are highlighted with a splash of red. The saucer also features a yellow pinstripe of color and small white polka dots to add detail. Next I hand-painted a thank you message and adhered the saucer to the pot with Liquid Nails.

I lined the pot with Saran wrap and sprayed liquid expanding foam into the pot. My plan was that the sticks (aka "stems") of the kids' tissue paper flowers would be stuck into the hardened foam, however the foam expanded more than expected and ended up looking like a souffle'!

 Lining the pot with the Saran wrap would allow the contents to be easily replaced later if desired.

No worries! I simply removed the pot's contents, relined it with Saran wrap, and sprayed more foam into the pot—this time taking care not to spray as much as before!

Next I painted some little flowers and leaves on the backside of the pot...

 ...and, VOILA!! It's ready to go to the party!

I literally worked on this project down to the final minute—some of the paint on the pot was still wet as I walked out the door to go to the party!

 And, finally! The finished project revealed!

Each kid attached two leaves to their flower stems—one had the child's name, and the second had something about their teacher that the kids especially loved (ie. her hugs, smile, etc).

The kids were particularly intrigued by the foam in the pot. Everyone had fun stabbing their flower into it!

The kids had a great time making their flowers. Some found doing the accordion fold of the tissue paper challenging, but thankfully we had plenty of parents on hand to help everyone get their flowers assembled!

Another successful party down in the books! And the teacher loved her personalized gift to boot!